The books listed below are now on display in the Main Reading Room, Botany Reading Room (for all Botany titles) and Tring (for all Ornithology titles). Please let us know if you'd like to make an appointment to use any of these titles.

Anthropology / Palaeontology

Carnivoran evolution : new views on phylogeny, form, and function / edited by Anjali Goswami and Anthony Friscia.Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Extinctions and invasions : a social history of British fauna / edited by Terry O'Connor and Naomi Sykes.Bollington : Windgather, 2010.

Illustrations of the legally protected British species : a supplement to the Checklist of legally protected British species / Christopher J. Betts[Worcester] : Christopher Betts Environmental Biology, 2010

A surprising and interesting collection for a library to hold - the Chalmers-Hunt Collection - is not, as is usual, a collection of books, but rather of objects. The objects in question number around 300 and relate to the art of insect collecting. This posting will take a look at the collection as a whole.

Though perhaps overlooked it is nevertheless one of the most unique and unusual Museum collections to be found in the UK and comprises of an eclectic mix of ephemera, with some items acting as the last surviving example of its kind. This collection was the focus of a library project to conserve, audit and transport these fragile items.

Items range from the practical and mass-produced to the more exotic, one-of-a-kind home-made instruments and equipment that were employed by natural historians from time to time. It clearly charts the development of insect collecting and the tools of the trade from the Victorian era to the early 20th Century. The idea to conserve these transient items for prosperity came from the eminent entomologist - John Michael Arthur Blake Chalmers-Hunt (1920-2004). J. Michael Chalmers-Hunt diligently collected these instruments over a long period of time before considering the NHM the proper repository for such a collection and kindly donated it to the Library.

This type of equipment was known in the early days of natural history collecting as the 'weapons of the chase'. This activity gained in popularity along with the thirst for knowledge of the animals and plants that help to make up our world. The instruments used to collect items and specimens developed and became more elaborate. The Victorian Age became known as the 'Golden Age of Natural History Collecting in Britain'. It was seen as not just a hobby but a quest for understanding. Natural History collecting on a large scale started to develop formally in the 17th Century - epitomised by the founding of the Royal Society in the 1660's. Superstitious beliefs began to be substituted for more objective, scientific ones and collecting for your own personal 'curiousity cabinet' became something of a fashion.

With a seemingly endless mixture of materials and sizes the collection is made up of such items as nets, pins, collecting boxes, rearing cages, lamps, preservation instruments, measurers, setting boards, magnifiers and so on. These items are a great example of how insect collecting was achieved a hundred or more years ago; an age where amateur-expert entomologists roamed the countryside, readily equipped with home-made nets and personalised boxes to catch and study their mini beast of choice.

Here are the most recently arrived additions to the Library collection. These books are now on display in the Main Reading Room, Botany Reading Room (for all Botany titles) and Tring (for all Ornithology titles). You are welcome to make an appointment to use them.

The Thirteenth Annual International Juried Botanical Art Exhibition of the American Society of Botanical Artists and the Horticultural Society of New York, New York, USA, September 15 - November 24, 2010 / catalog editors : Robin A. Jess, Carol Woodin.New York : American Society of Botanical Artists, 2010.

Please find below a list of this week’s recently arrived additions to the Library collection. These books are now on display in the Main Reading Room and Botany Reading Room (for all Botany titles). You are welcome to make an appointment to use this material.

An Oak Spring Herbaria : herbs and herbals from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries : a selection of the rare books, manuscripts and works of art in the collection of Rachel Lambert Mellon / Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi & Tony Willis ; edited with a description of the American herbals by Mark Argetsinger ; [translated from the Italian by Lisa Chien].Upperville, Va. : Oak Spring Garden Library, 2009.